Oakland Park Appoints City Historian

OAKLAND PARK — The way Midge Turpen looks at it, she`s always kept track of the city`s history, but now she`s got the title to go with the job.

``It`s nothing I haven`t been doing,`` said Turpen, a charter member of the Oakland Park Historical Society. ``It only means now that I have to do it.``

The City Council appointed Turpen as the city`s historian earlier this month to help keep Oakland Park`s history on the minds of today`s residents.

Turpen should be up to the challenge. She has been an administrator and researcher for the Broward County Historical Commission since 1973.

``It`s amazing how many people say we don`t have a history,`` said Turpen, an Oakland Park resident since 1959. ``But we do. We have a lot of history in Broward County, and in Oakland Park.``

Turpen is already trying to get Oakland Park Elementary School, built in 1923, placed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

``There`s not a school in Florida on it,`` she said.

Turpen is also researching whether a small building on the east side of Dixie Highway in the 3900 block might be one of the oldest structures in Broward. She said she thinks the concrete building, which houses a computer store, may have been built in 1899.

Turpen would like to write a history of Oakland Park, which was incorporated as a city in 1929. But she is shying away from the project because of the enormous writing task involved.

``It`s a remote possibility,`` said Turpen. ``I`ve thought of it. I would love to do the research for it if I could get a writer.``

City Council member H. Keneth Powell, who nominated Turpen to the unpaid post, said he thought it was a good idea to appoint a city historian.

Years ago, he noted, a resident kept a scrapbook of all the newspaper clippings about Oakland Park and presented it annually to the city.

South Florida`s history is important, said Turpen, particularly since much of the area`s growth has taken place in the last 25 years.